The present invention relates to an electronic inventory clearance system which has utility as a system for electronically buying and selling items. The system has particular utility as a reservation system for travel accommodations such as airline reservations.
Systems employing high speed electronic digital computers are especially useful for rapid and reliable processing of business data. Over the years, numerous systems utilizing computers of various sorts have been developed for use in the transportation industry. U.S. Pat. No. 2,542,890 to Basu et al. illustrates one rudimentary system. The system includes a master station which communicates with one or more remote booking panels. To make a reservation or check on availability, an operator at a remote booking panel presses a button corresponding to a particular flight on a particular date and receives an indication of seat availability. The operator by pressing other buttons or switches can either book a seat on a flight or cancel a reservation.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,883,106 to Cornwell et al. shows yet another early reservation system for travel accommodations. In this system, a central station is used to maintain an inventory and one or more remote units are used to scan the inventory to locate a desired accommodation and to make a reservation if such an accommodation is found. The system also allows an agent to locate a record of a reservation and effect a sale or cancellation of that reservation. One of the particular deficiencies of this system is the lack of an efficient mechanism for handling wait-listed items, particularly when access to the central station is unavailable. With this system, a list must be clerically kept. In addition, intervention by a master agent is required to clear a wait-listed item.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,995,729 to Steele illustrates an electronic digital inventory computer which also has utility in a passenger reservation system. The system includes a central processing unit for storing information about an inventory and one or more input devices for communicating with the central processing unit to place an order. Here again, there is no effective mechanism for processing wait-listed items.
More recently, electronic systems for issuing tickets and/or boarding passes to passengers have been developed. These systems employ modern digital computers and have plural input/output terminals tied to a master computer. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,750,103 to Angus et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,186 to Kelly et al. exemplify these systems.
Most travel agencies today utilize a single primary or host reservation system to make and sell airline reservations and seats. The agent utilizes a computer to request a seat or reservation on a specific flight. Often, requests are not filled because communication with the reservation system's computer is impossible or seats in a desired class or on a desired flight are unavailable. These unfilled requests are often placed on a wait-list within the reservation system or in the event of computer related malfunctions kept manually. Problems arise both in clearing items already wait-listed and adding new requests when access to the reservation system becomes available. For example, when a previously unavailable computer in the system becomes available, a person must manually enter, reserve and confirm the reservation. After doing this, the requested reservation may not be available, and it may have to be wait-listed for later action.
When seats do become available, either by cancellation or additional allocation, airline reservation systems in use today do not automatically clear wait-listed reservations. It is usually the responsibility of the agent to review the status of a reservation and sell a wait-listed seat when it becomes available. The problem is further exacerbated in that most host systems are controlled by a particular airline. In these systems, seat inventory is controlled by controlling the number of discount seats on a daily basis. The airline(s) sponsoring the host system use this control and the allocation of seats to their own and other reservation systems or co-host systems as a method of obtaining a competitive advantage over other airlines. With the large number of agents trying to sell wait-listed seats, the probability of a successful sale becomes lower as the volatility of seats and number of agents increase.
It is believed that most travel agents would welcome a system which collects requests when an airline's reservation computer is unavailable or when requested items are unavailable, stores a list of these inventory requests, subsequently automatically uses this collected information to query one or more master reservation systems regarding item availability, and after finding an item meeting predefined criteria automatically sells the item in the name of an individual. As yet, such a system is not in commercial operation or commercially available.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic inventory clearance system and process having particular utility as an airline reservation system as well as utility in other applications where reservations or items are sold via computer interaction.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system and process as above which requires minimal operator intervention in clearing wait-listed reservations or items.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a system and process as above which is capable of performing both traditional and non-traditional booking, buying and/or selling techniques.
These and other objects and advantages will become more apparent from the following description and drawings.